Marc Humphrey, of the Humphrey Law Firm, P.C., has handled medical negligence cases now for more than twenty-five years. Pursuing medical negligence cases on behalf of clients involves an extensive investigation. That investigation starts with the story of what happened. It continues with obtaining all pertinent medical records so as to see what story is being told by the healthcare professionals who provided the medical care. In addition to those steps, we spend significant time researching medical journal articles and/or medical textbooks which help us understand the accepted standards of medical care which should have been followed in the diagnosis or treatment of the medical condition in question. We then consult expert witnesses. Experts provide us additional information of what should have been done under the circumstances existing at the time the patient sought out care. If all of those resources lead us to the conclusion that there was substandard care, that the substandard care produced injury or death, and that the monetary equivalent of the effects of that substandard care would justify pursuing the claim, then we recommend formal litigation. The investigation of a medical negligence case takes time and is costly. We are allowed to assist our clients in the cost of investigating and pursuing the medical negligence claim under what is called a contingent fee arrangement. Under such an arrangement, we are never compensated for all of the hours of time put into your case unless we are successful in obtaining for you a recovery.

In addition to the fee, which is a percentage of the gross recovery, there are significant monetary expenses associated with pursuing a medical negligence claim. Those expenses are the most significant when it comes to retaining expert witnesses to help explain and teach the jury what should have been done and how that would have altered the patient’s outcome. It is very difficult to find experts who will testify on behalf of patients. The doctors on the other side have no problem finding expert witnesses because they interact with such experts on a day-in and day-out basis. However, physicians who are consistently willing to stand up for injured patients are becoming more and more rare. Oftentimes those physicians who will testify for the patients are criticized within their profession. In addition, some of the professional associations to which those physicians belong threaten such physicians with ethical complaints and disciplinary action for standing up for the patient. When that happens we all are the victims.

Without medical negligence lawsuits, there are very few mechanisms in place to assure that the quality of the care that all of us receive when we go to the doctor or the hospital is consistent with accepted standards of medical care and practice. Those accepted standards of medical care and practice are implemented in order to minimize the risk of injury or death through the medical care we receive. Because of the difficulty in obtaining experts who will testify for patients, it is not unusual to pay significant sums of money to those experts for the time they have put in, in advising us as to where the care fell below accepted standards and the consequence of that substandard care. Through the course of a litigated medical negligence action, it would not be unusual for an expert witness to devote thirty to forty hours of time in reviewing information and advising us. It is also not unusual to pay four to five hundred dollars per hour to an expert, the hourly rate being the monetary equivalent of what that physician would have earned seeing and treating patients. As such, it’s not an uncommon occurrence for an expert to be paid twenty-five to forty thousand dollars in one case for sharing his/her expertise with us and with the jury. Because of those charges, we are careful in our recommendations of whether someone who has contacted us about a medical negligence claim should formally pursue their claim in the civil justice system.

We have heard from juries that there are far too many frivolous claims against doctors. The cost of just investigating a medical negligence claim is an absolute guarantee that lawyers who handle medical negligence claims never want to file a frivolous claim against a doctor. Medical negligence claims are simply too risky and too expensive to ever file such a claim. In our office, we never recommend pursuit of such a claim unless we’re absolutely convinced that the claim is supported by the medical records, the medical literature, and qualified experts who share their opinions with us. Even then, there is still significant risk in pursuing such a claim in our civil justice system. That risk is magnified by the unwillingness of all of us to even open our minds to the possibility that there is a problem with substandard medical care in this country which is causing large numbers of death and large numbers of permanent injury in this country.

Representing an individual who has sustained a traumatic brain injury is a challenging endeavor.  Proving the existence of a traumatic brain injury can sometimes be difficult.  Proving those injuries are difficult because oftentimes the nature and/or severity of the brain injury does not show up on imaging studies such as CT scans of the brain or MRIs or magnetic residence imaging of the brain.  Other methods of diagnosing such injury include neuropsychological testing.  Neuropsychological testing involves testing various components of the brain which are known to have different functions in our day-to-day lives.  There is multitude of neuropsychological tests available.  Interpreting those neuropsychological tests and coming to conclusions as to the likely impact of abnormal testing on a person’s day-to-day function is a very specialized area of neuropsychology.  What compounds the challenge of successfully representing someone who has sustained such an injury is the fact that philosophically, there are healthcare professionals, neuropsychologists, who routinely perform neuropsychological testing but philosophically tend to believe that the existence of brain injuries from traumatic sources are few and far in between.

Notwithstanding those challenges in successfully representing someone who has sustained a brain injury, those injuries can be one of the most debilitating injuries that any human being could ever experience.  Over the years in representing such individuals, we have come to know those individuals as “the walking wounded.”   If you look at them, they do not appear injured.  However, their ability to process information, their ability to handle complex tasks, their ability to maintain balance emotionally, and their ability to continue to have meaningful interpersonal relationships may be seriously affected by even a subtle brain injury.  Further, their ability to function in the workplace may be significantly affected by such an injury.  We have handled multiple traumatic brain injury cases over the years and are committed to the type of thorough investigation and workup of such a case that is necessary in order to obtain meaningful compensation for the dramatic impact on the lives of those individuals sustaining such injuries.

If you or a loved one seems to be significantly different after sustaining a traumatic injury which you believe was caused by the reckless or negligent conduct of another, we can assist you in working through the legal issues presented by such an injury.  Again, we handle those cases on a contingent fee basis which means that our law firm is paid nothing for all of the time and effort of our entire staff, including the lawyers, unless we are successful in recovering.  We can also assist you in financing the case by advancing the expenses associated with investigating and pursuing your claim.

Each one of those rigs, while moving down the highway, poses a significant risk to each one of us and our family members.  At the Humphrey Law Firm, P.C., we are committed toward improving the safety on our highways through our representation of those who had been injured through the negligent or reckless operation of large semi tractor-trailers on our roadways.  There are a multitude of safety rules and regulations which are supposed to govern the operation of these large rigs on our highway system.  Oftentimes those safety rules and regulations are ignored.  Oftentimes truck drivers are told to disregard those safety rules and regulations so as to get the delivery where it is supposed to go earlier rather than later.  It has been estimated by the Highway Traffic Safety Administration that up to thirty percent of the deaths and seventy percent of the injuries on our roadways which involve semi tractor-trailers are directly attributable to fatigued truck drivers.

The large semi tractor-trailers are not responsible for all collisions resulting in injury and death on our roadways.  Worldwide it has been estimated in the calendar year 2004 that 1.2 million people were killed (2.2% of all deaths) and fifty million more were injured in motor vehicle collisions.  Motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death among children worldwide (two hundred sixty thousand children die each year and ten million are injured).  Automobile collisions are the sixth leading preventable cause of death in the United States.  In 2005, forty-five thousand eight hundred people died in the United States and 2.4 million were injured from automobile collisions.

While there are a multitude of factors that may result in an automobile collision, it is well accepted that greater than fifty percent of crashes are due solely to driver factors.  Those factors can include the speed in which the vehicle is being operated, driver impairment from alcohol, physical impairment, old age, sleep deprivation or drug use.  Most recently, the use of cell phones while operating an automobile have caused a proliferation of the number of crashes causing serious injury or death.

Again, there are multiple safety rules that govern the operation of automobiles on the roadway.  We at the Humphrey Law Firm are committed to improving the safety record on our roadways and preventing serious injury or death from unnecessary automobile collisions.  The most important way of improving safety on our roadways is to hold those responsible for those collisions legally in our civil justice system.

If you or a loved one has been injured (or if a loved one has been killed) on our roadways under circumstances that you believe another vehicle and its operator were negligent or reckless, we can advise you of your legal rights in conjunction with that injury or death.  Again, there is no charge for an initial consultation and investigation of the merits of such a claim.  When we take on such claims, we do so on a contingent fee basis which simply means that we recover nothing for all of the time and effort of our entire office unless we are successful in obtaining for you the recovery you deserve.